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"Well, that's personal."
"Well, I'm sorry, that's his problem."
"How does this raise the level of civility?" Stahl is yielding
to despair on the point.
"Well, we're in a political debate here. We didn't come here
to have a tea party together, and toss a coin to see who would
win on an issue. I have very thick skin. I don't care what they
say about me."
That is a very grand thing -- to announce that the woman who
may be the next speaker of the House really doesn't care what is
said about her. People who enter politics have to expect that
there will be rough language ahead, used at their expense. It is
so, also, for (most) writers and other public figures.
But Pelosi is advertising an indifference to necessary
elements of democratic life, and this takes her one step further
than giving evidence that her skin is thick. It moves the public
concern to the meaning of words. If we are trained to attach no
meaning to words used by Democrats about Republicans, and the
other way around, we debase not merely language, but ideals. If
Republicans in Congress are engaged in immoral and corrupt
practices, then they should be replaced. Or, the things they do
should be given other names.
Speaker Pelosi will be heir to an important tradition,
exercising an important role. She should not begin with this
profession of utter indifference to the language used to describe
what she does, and indeed to describe her. |